3,500 US troops set to leave Iraq and more to leave later on .


----- Original Message -----
Subject:3,500 US troops set to leave Iraq
Date:Tue, 6 May 2008 12:35:27
From:Lovecanbuildabridge2@... <Lovecanbuildabridge2@...>
To: <Lovecanbuildabridge2@...>

3,500 US troops set to leave Iraq The U.S. military says about 3,500 soldiers
are scheduled to leave Iraq in the coming weeks. The soldiers, part of the
3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, will redeploy to Fort Benning, Ga., the military
said. The U.S. sent some 30,000 additional troops into Iraq last year to
help stem growing violence. The troop increase, a truce by a key Shiite Muslim
militia and the rise of Sunni fighters who allied with the U.S. in the battle
against al-Qaida were credited with a sharp decrease in bloodshed during the
last 10 months. The soldiers are part of the third of five "surge"
brigades scheduled to leave the country. The other two are expected to return to
the U.S. by the end of July, leaving an estimated 140,000 troops in Iraq after a
peak of more than 160,000. "The continued drawdown of surge brigades
demonstrates continued progress in Iraq," Brig. Gen. Dan Allyn said in the
statement released late Monday.
"After July, commanders will assess our security posture for about 45 days and
determine future force requirements based on these conditions-based
assessments." Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has
pushed for a so-called "pause" in further redeployment of U.S. troops.
Critics have called for a quicker withdrawal of American soldiers, but
commanders on the ground insist the slowdown is needed so a sharp increase in
violence is not seen when U.S. forces leave. Separately, the U.S. military
said in a statement Tuesday that a brothel in northern Iraq was attacked the day
before. The Americans blamed the attack on al-Qaida insurgents, but local police
did not speculate on who carried out the killings. Iraqi police said the
attack in Mosul killed three prostitutes and wounded two others. There
have been a string of attacks against women deemed immoral in recent months,
including the bombing of hair styling
salons and the frequent murder of women not wearing traditional clothing in the
southern city of Basra. Meanwhile, at least four civilians were killed
overnight in the Baghdad Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, hospital officials
said Tuesday. Some 21 people were injured at the same time in Sadr City, which
has seen fierce fighting between the Mahdi Army militia and U.S. and Iraqi
troops. Clashes in the sprawling slum of 2.5 million people that serves as
a power base for radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi fighters
have raged for five weeks, since the Iraqi government began a crackdown on the
militants in southern Iraq. Hassan al-Rubaie, a Sadrist lawmaker,
suspended his seat in parliament on Tuesday to protest the fighting in Sadr
City. He said he held the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
responsible for the fighting in the slum. The lawmaker also blamed Iran
for interfering with Iraq's security and
said the neighboring nation was causing much of the violence by supplying
money, weapons and training to Iraqi fighters, a charge U.S. commanders have
repeatedly made. Iran denies the allegations. Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi
forces raided two police stations and arrested 48 policemen suspected of having
links to Shiite militias late Monday in the Baghdad neighborhood of Shula, a
Shiite stronghold, a policeman said on condition of anonymity as he was not
authorized to speak to the media. Elsewhere, two policemen were killed
Monday night in clashes with unidentified gunmen in Mosul, a provincial
policeman said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to
the media. Around the same time in eastern Mosul, two gunmen were killed by
police. All material © 2008 WABC-TV, Inc. & 2004-2008 LSN, Inc. All Rights
Reserved. Story posted 2008.05.06 at 03:30 PM EDT Go To The Story




________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ